#ml fandom critical

[ilikekidsshows]

One of the biggest ProSenti arguments that really grinds my gears is the effort/age value, the idea that it took so much effort to make Adrien / he's been alive so long he's now human, mostly because it's been treated as fact for a year now and I'm pretty sure it's still under the same status of "totally made up" it was a year ago.

Like, what is the name of the episode where we are told either of these things? Describe the scene and how it delivers this information. Hell, I doubt the people claiming this nonsense could even produce a tweet/x post from one of the showrunners that confirms this theory (which would in turn imply that they had considered this, but this important piece of worldbuilding didn't make it into the show proper because trying to make Chloé look as unlikeable as possible was a bigger priority).

Also, I'll be needing a scale of at what point a Sentimonster has enough effort put into it/experience points accumulated to be considered fully human. Unless this kind of value is usable for further analysis, it's pointless.

Making Sentibug exhausted Mayura, but she also collapsed after making the giant butterfly both times. On all these three occasions, Gabriel had to carry Nathalie to relocate her. The Senti Supporters love dehumanizing the nonhumanoid Sentimonsters, so I doubt they consider the unnamed butterfly Sentimonster to be among "Sentibeings", but, by the effort measure, the butterfly is just as human as Sentibug.

As for the time of existence value, Optigami was spying on the known Miraculous holders for weeks, yet no one mourned it when it died, when it should be more human than Sentibug, who existed for half a day.

I hate this stupid plotline so much.

#ml critical #ml fandom critical #sentimonster discourse #miraculous ladybug #ml writers salt

[red-balloon12]

Everybody Hates Lila (And Why It’s Concerning Sometimes)

Lila Rossi is not a stranger in the Miraculous fandom. In fact I’d argue she’s more infamous than Gabriel in some cases. She’s despised by nearly everyone and while some reasons are more justifiable than others, she’s all around not a good person and a mid at best character.

But here’s my deal with it. The fandom hates this girl to I’d like to say an….unhealthy degree. Like the amount of salt this character gets is unmatched. And I feel like the causation of all of this salt doesn’t really live up to the response.

Lila is a liar who causes characters to act out of character very often. And not only that but she also is Marinette’s main rival now and is a jerk to her. She’s underutilized and her lies aren’t that convincing and yet the story wants to convince us she’s more important than she really is pre butterfly miraculous.

This is Lila’s character summed up. At the most I’d expect is frustration mixed in with mild dislike. Reasonable but not over the top. Instead though, I see SEVERAL people make so many salt fics and talk so much shit about her that I just have to sit down and say….y’all need to chill. You all seriously need to chill.

The fandom talks about this character like she’s the spawn of Satan, something we’ve been criticizing Astruc for doing with Chloe, all because she doesn’t have as many redeeming traits as her. Did we forget that they’re BOTH kids? Both of them still have room to improve on themselves.

And I’ll admit it, I was one of those people who kept on saying “Why demonize Chloe when we have Lila” but thinking on it now, neither of them deserves to have that fate. If we REALLY need a character to do the whole “people don’t change” thing, why not Gabriel?

It’s so much better to have this lesson taught to adults to not be like Gabriel, to accept change and loss and to be better. To teach how heavy the impact of a lost love can be and how old age isn’t an excuse to be “stuck in your ways”.

Plus the lesson works better for someone who’s older than for teenagers who’s literally at the stage of their lives where change is everything. And I’m not saying Lila needs to be redeemed or she isn’t allowed to be a villain. What I’m saying is that the over salting on her character, a character that can be easily fixed and patched up, is kinda dumb and kinda annoying to see…especially when some people do like Lila.

SPEAKING OF WHICH, don’t think I’ve forgotten what happened years ago with that one fan that claimed that they loved Lila. That’s what happens when you take salting on a character WAY too far. And I can say that it’s only gotten a little better.

I just don’t understand why people can’t spend their energy talking about how to make a character better instead of salting on them 24/7 and this goes for all of the characters in ML.

I’m gonna be in the minority when I say this but Lila doesn’t deserve to be salted in as much as she does. She deserves reevaluation and a true villain arc. The constant bashing and insulting her at any chance ain’t it.

But you wanna know the thing that frustrates me the most about the Lila salt? How she started getting salted on in the first place. Aka, her being another barrier to Adrienette.

If y’all don’t know already, I don’t like the lovesquare and even back then I didn’t like it. And when I started seeing people hate Lila for this reason, I got very annoyed. It’s the same reason as to why people hated Kagami and it’s a stupid reason (imo). At least the other reasons why she’s hated had some foundation and sense.

TLDR: Lila is a mess but she’s not a mess that’s beyond repair but the constant salting on her and her character isn’t going to do anything. (If you really wanna salt on someone, salt on the writers for making her writing so subpar)

#miraculous #miraculous opinions #miraculous tales of ladybug and chat noir #lila rossi #Lila sugar(?) #ml fandom critical #fandom salt #slight ml writers salt

[m3nt4llyr4v3d]

I don’t understand the hate towards Chloe or her fans

Like, in most other fandoms, if you like the bitchy character, you just like the bitchy character, and that’s that

In the Miraculous fandom, somehow liking Chloe is a full-on moral failing. Somehow you’re simultaneously an abuser, a bully, a racist, and you (Yes, you!) have probably doxed someone in the fandom and personally sent death threats to the writers!

It’s funny, because every single person who has anything even neutral to say about her gets lumped into that category. If you like her character at all or think she’s a fun personality? Chloe stan. Think she deserved redemption? Chloe stan. Think her writing is bad? Chloe stan. Think her damnation arc was underutilized? Chloe stan. Think that, perhaps, the adult figures in her life influenced her? Chloe stan. Insist that the show literally shows the audience the reasons she’d be acting like that and it’s a little silly to pretend she’s an evil force of nature who’s evil to be evil when she’s just some bratty teenager? Chloe stan. Think that Zoe is boring? Chloe stan. Think that even the writers literally do nothing with Zoe? Chloe stan. Wanted to see the sisters bond or even interact at all? Chloe stan. Thinks it’s really really REALLY strange that her own father would send her off with her awful mother? Chloe stan. Point out that abused kids seeing themselves in Chloe might find these scenes upsetting? Chloe stan. Think that maybe she needs psychological help because this behavior has gotten out of hand and her family is terrible? Chloe stan. Saying that it’s weird to push all the blame on her when she literally the entire reason she’s like this is due to awful parenting from her adult father, and manipulation from two fully grown adults right before her departure? Chloe stan.

Somehow she’s just evil to be evil. She and Lila are just demons, no one else though :). The adults around them who do arguably worse stuff? Nah, they’re sooooo sympathetic, look at Andre be sad about his dreams and look at Gabriel breaking down in the end! Neglectful fathers? Nah, what are you talking about? It’s all Chloe’s fault, and Adrien said Gabriel was a hero at the end! (what the fuck)

The fandom’s attitude towards anyone who has anything positive or neutral to say about that character or how it’s handled is fucking wired, especially when they’re being hypocrites by absolving all of the literal adult characters of everything they did, especially her own father

#ml salt #ml critical #ml fandom salt #ml fandom critical #ml chloe #gabriel salt #andre salt

[eddo-tensei]

More thoughts on Derision (Spoilers, obviously)

I think it's amusing that the default counter-argument to anyone who criticizes this episode boils down to "Well, you're just a Chloe Stan!" Which is something I had to deal with myself recently. Apparently, you can only hate this episode if you're a Chloe apologist. First off, hi, I'm Eddo. I wrote a fanfic where Chloe literally gets thrown into the dirt and suffer an allergic reaction to cacti, both times being her own fault. I feel like my Chloe Stan license should be revoked after that.

Anyways, I'm not surprised with the direction they went with Chloe in Derision. It's been stated since around Season 4 that Chloe was on a "Damnation Arc", so they've been doing everything they can to make her worse and worse. So, I'm not surprised or even angry that they continued this here. I'm annoyed, but not angry. What I AM angry about would be the other characters who got mangled in this shitshow.

Writers? Could you please stop having Chat threaten people with Cataclysm after he's shown regret doing it to people by accident TWICE?! This has happened three times now, counting what happened with Scarabella. Yes, I know he did this before with Darker Owl, but that just makes it worse because that happened right AFTER he regretted doing this to Monarch. You know, the guy who's been tormenting and attacking everyone for over a year? I guess to Chat, Damocles and Kim deserve it more for ripping away a fantasy and pulling a shitty prank respectively.

I know I complained about this a lot already, but this needs to be stressed upon. If we're going to take Cataclysm seriously, especially with what later episodes showed us, maybe DON'T have your hero threaten people with it for relatively petty reasons? "BUT IT'S FOR TRUE LOVE!!!1!!" Yeah, no. When he tried to do it on Darker Owl, Ladybug told him to cut that crap. It then happened again with Dark Humor with Ladybug telling him not to do it. It doesn't matter if it's for "true love." Both times he did this so far, Ladybug made it clear that this was a bad idea. So, maybe you guys should stop trying to encourage it. I refuse to believe that Chat believes that Monarch is more deserving to live after everything that he did than Kim after what he did. Speaking of Kim...

My friendly neighborhood dumb jock, why would the writers do this to you? When we only had the leaks to go by, I actually tried to scour for any interactions Kim had with Marinette and I can confirm that with the revelations we got in Derision, they REALLY don't make sense. Yes, Kim was a bit of a douche in the first season. Origins had him push Ivan around to the point of being the trigger for the Akuma. But he wasn't THIS much of a douchenozzle. Moreover, I have a hard time believing Marinette would be as friendly as she is with Kim throughout the series given what he did to her as revealed in this episode. Also, I know this is going to sound offensive, but...Kim was Marinette's first crush? Really? That's what you're going with? I'm not trying to insult Kim, but there was NOTHING that hinted to this. I can't help but think this was the thought process of the writers when they brought this up:

"So, we need to have Chloe do something to Marinette that would explain why Marinette struggles to be with Adrien. It has to be something big and traumatic. More importantly, it has to involve Marinette actually having a past crush that Chloe ruined and it has to be a character we're familiar with, so we can't make up an OC for it. We can't use Nino because he had a crush on her and it wouldn't make sense for her to reciprocate. We can't use Nathaniel because his crush went almost completely unnoticed by Marinette and he's also gay now. We can't use Ivan because he likes Mylene and we can't complicate that. We can't use Max because most people think he's ace and subverting that would piss a ton of people off. Oh, and we can't have it be any of the girls either because our show would get cancelled if Marinette isn't straight. So, let's just make it this guy."

"This. Fucking. Guy."

I'm having a hard time thinking of any other reason. I know some people theorized in the past that Kim and Marinette might've had a thing, but I don't think they held any water. Even now, however, I really don't think people should be happy it was canonized in this way.

I always held the belief that Chloe was responsible for Marinette's behavior, but my idea of it was that Chloe had been bullying Marinette for a long time and those years of sustained bullying took its toll on the poor baker girl that made it difficult for her to not only open her heart to people she loves, but have difficulties making friends in general until Alya came along. Yeah, Chloe doesn't look good in this case either, but it would've been more reasonable and would probably resonate with a lot more people who probably had to deal with bullies messing with them for a long time because these effects usually aren't instant. They get built on for a long time and it can really mess up their perception on things.

I think a good story would've been Marinette having to heal from that sustained trauma and while it is difficult since nobody can just quickly heal from trauma, it'd be a good journey for Marinette to be able to open up again with Alya and Adrien being just the first two pieces Marinette needs for her recovery.

But now, instead of all that, it turns out Chloe just pulled a prank that just unleashed a cavalcade of trauma on Marinette all at once that is hyper-specific to how she handles her crush that Adrien and ONLY Adrien can heal. All the while, it turns out that the prank was actually pulled by a guy who I really thought was just kinda fun and cool, but now I can't talk about him in the same way again because he's been thrown under the bus for the sake of this nonsense plot that's difficult not to call a full-on retcon. Do you know what I can call a retcon, though? Or rather who?

I am sorry to all of the people who are probably stanning Socqueline right now, but I CAN'T vibe with her. I'm not saying you're not allowed to like her either, because that would be dumb, but I DON'T like how she was presented in Derision. First off, to get this out of the way, we're no strangers to characters being introduced out of nowhere. Felix and Zoe are both characters that come to mind. The thing is you can at least explain their respective absences easily. Felix had likely been distant from Adrien for a long time with him only coming in out of obligation with Amelie. Zoe is actually even more easy to explain given that she was shoved into a boarding school by Audrey and wouldn't really be able to connect with any of the characters until she was forced to transfer. Socqueline, however, does not have that luxury and cannot be easily explained away not only with how we found her, but for the fact that there was NO hint to her existing until Season 5 and that is inexcusable given how much importance this character now has. To put it in perspective, this is how we are introduced to Socqueline in Jubilation:

Marinette: That fake Ladybug from this morning, I think it was Socqueline, a school friend from last year. Knowing her, I’m sure she means well. But I have to convince her to stop putting herself in danger like that.

That's it. She just calls her a school friend. Yes, it's clear that she's at least important enough for Marinette to remember her name, she was just called a school friend. At the very least, she did have an interesting story with her trying to be Ladybug in order to help people. Of course, she had to be talked out of it because it's causing issues with the real Ladybug, but it's a decent story and Socqueline had only made a few appearances here and there.

And then Derision.

Yes, Socqueline referred to Chloe as "that monster", so it's clear that they planned her to have something against Chloe since her first appearance. However, Derision showed us that Socqueline wasn't just a school friend. She was Marinette's closest confidant in the school years prior to the start of the series. She actively protects Marinette from bullies, particularly Chloe, and was clearly a huge inspiration for her until Chloe got her suspended from school.

First off, in case I haven't made it clear, we haven't seen Socqueline AT ALL until Season 5. Not even a hint to her existence. So given how significant she was made out to be in Derision, WHY HASN'T SHE MADE ANY APPEARANCES IN THE SERIES BEFOREHAND?! She doesn't even have the excuse of being outside of Paris like Felix and Zoe do because she's STILL there and in an arts and crafts store no less, which probably would've been a great place for Marinette to hang out in with her friends if the writers thought this through. But they didn't and Socqueline's debut comes off as severely jarring because we have this character who was really important to Marinette's life just not show up until she started cosplaying as Ladybug.

Secondly, it muddles Marinette's own backstory as well as severely hampering the significance of Alya. Now instead of being alone with nobody to help her against Chloe, which makes her friendship with Alya all the more stronger, Marinette just had this super cool friend who was always there for her until mean ol' Chloe got her kicked out of school. Doesn't that sound like something you'd see in a fanfic, specifically one that's salting Alya given how Socqueline was depicted as Marinette's BFF?

Thirdly, if Chloe was able to get Socqueline suspended so easily, then why hadn't she been able to do that with the other students? Yeah, she got close with Alya, but that didn't stick. If Chloe really had the ability to just make students disappear even if it happened once, she would NOT hesitate to try and do this again with any other student who slighted her, ESPECIALLY Marinette. But she doesn't. Once her attempt on Alya failed, she didn't try again. Hell, LILA had more attempts to get Marinette kicked out of school than Chloe did and actually got closer to doing it than Chloe would ever get, which is weird since she doesn't have the title of "Mayor's Daughter" to throw around like Chloe would. This just feels like something done to explain away why Socqueline didn't show up in the series which doesn't work because she's STILL IN PARIS and I'm pretty sure Marinette would be more than happy to meet with Socqueline given how close they were, but that never happened.

Fourthly, I'm guessing nobody felt like pointing it out because it felt too obvious, but doesn't Socqueline just come off as the writer's answer to Bridgette? You know, the older Marinette based on the anime PV that some fan writers implement into their own stories? Yeah, she's not one-to-one similar to Marinette like Bridgette is, but it definitely feels like another instance of the writers pulling stuff out of fanon just to put a canon spin on it. And like all the other instances, it's a bad spin.

Lastly, this whole incident with the prank and Socqueline's suspension took place a few months before Origins. Not even a year at the earliest. It was specifically stated that Socqueline was suspended three weeks before the end of the school year. Given how close that time gap, the way everyone behaves in Origins makes almost no sense. Marinette would be a lot more horrified of Chloe if Derision was anything to go by and Chloe would be more willing to try and cast Alya out so Marinette doesn't have any allies given that Derision showed Chloe REALLY wanting to make sure nobody helps Marinette. The only point I could even give any leeway to is Kim and even then, again, he's not that much of a douche in Origins as he was in Derision. So, really, it all just comes off as a blatant retcon specifically to try and explain the new direction the writers are taking with certain characters. And do you want to know the dumbest thing? Apparently, Socqueline was such an inspiration to Marinette that the latter changed her hair to be more like Socqueline's.

No, seriously. That's also how they explain why Marinette has different hairstyles. I know Expository Hairstyle Changes are a thing in fiction, but this is just awkward as hell given how traumatic and melodramatic the whole thing is. You don't need to say that Marinette's hairstyle came from someone who she considered a hero because nothing about Marinette indicated that her hairstyle is important. This isn't like Josuke changing his hairstyle to be based on the man who saved him as a child. It's a purely cosmetic change that's suddenly given a shit-ton of significance because now it's connected to this horribly traumatic incident. In fact, you know what this reminds me of?

Actually, the whole segment where this Linkara clip came from seems to sum up a lot of things wrong with Derision. It's not just bad because it makes some characters look bad or introduces stuff out of nowhere. It's bad because now everything in the flashback is now part of all of the characters! Every prior episode will now have to be viewed with a lens tinted by the events of this episode. Now nobody can discuss Kim without people salting on him for the prank, now nobody can talk about how important Alya's friendship with Marinette because of Socqueline's sudden boost in significance (In fact, it's very likely that Alya salters will try to use Socqueline as a replacement friend), and now nobody can speculate the intrigue of Marinette's past because EVERYTHING about her behavior is linked to this specific incident and nothing else. That's what pisses me off about this episode. That's why I share that Double D meme so frequently. I could care less about how much of a monster Chloe was depicted to be in this episode, but I am going to complain when other characters are butchered in the process. I will complain about one thing concerning her, though.

Isn't it amazing that you can tell the writers are trying DESPERATELY to squish any and all positive interpretations of Chloe, even trying to downplay parental neglect because "this character also didn't have a mom and they didn't turn out this way" even though Mylene's and Chloe's situations are still VASTLY different? You can make the argument that Audrey's absence doesn't excuse Chloe's actions. In fact, I don't think it really does either, but saying that there's only one valid response to an absent parent is EXTREMELY insensitive to people who might be going through similar situations.

Oh, and to cap this all off? This is the favorite episode of one of the main writers. Said writer possibly being considered to be the new director for Season 6 of Miraculous and onwards. I'm not gonna name which one for obvious reasons, but it's been confirmed.

I feel like this is a good indication that you need to hop off this series.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous #mlb #mlb spoilers #ml spoilers #ml season 5 spoilers #ml s5 spoilers #ml derision #miraculous derision #derision #mlb derision #derision spoilers #derision salt #ml fandom salt #ml writers salt #ml fandom critical #marinette dupain cheng #mlb marinette #le chien kim #miraculous kim #king monkey #mlb adrien #adrien agreste #chat noir #chloe bourgeois #queen bee #mlb chloe #ml chloe #socqueline wang #mlb socqueline

[familyagrestefanblog]

Someday, I swear, someday...

Someday I will write down why not just the story of Cinderella but especially the dynamic between Cinderella, her evil stepmother and stepsisters is one of the most important stories that has lasted thousands of years for a VERY GOOD REASON

Not just regarding child abuse, feminist literature and literature of female (coded) life experiences

But one of the most important stories PERIOD.

SOMEDAY I will fucking explain why Adrien and Gabriel are a brilliant and extremely important depiction of that story, and a phenomenal gender swapped variation of it for modern feminist story-telling that is very much breaking some grounds. If only Marinette's own girlboss 'knight in shining armor' narrative wouldn't constantly undermine that, making them seem "lesser" bc Adrien is "just" her little damsel she will save "easily" because we can't allow for her to be seen as anything else but one of the "STRONG" modern female heros.

SOMEDAY I will explain why Cinderella and Lady Tremaine are NOT fucking jokes and outdated female (coded) archetypes to be laughed at for how "weak and backwards" they are, but if well utilized one of the most raw and gut-wrenching archetypes of the non-romantic interplay of love vs hatred that grabs you by the most intimit connection a human can have and potentially breaks down the very root of who you are and why.

I will fucking explain why despite how misogynistic our society is, Cinderella and Lady Tremaine are still one of the most iconic protagonist and villain pairs in all of fiction and will continue doing so for many ages to come.

Why Cinderella, no matter how much society will tear her down, will never stop rising from her ashes victoriously. And why Lady Tremaine, no matter how underutilized and slandered she's depicted, will never ever stop dominating 99% of any other villain she's put against.

Both entirely without special powers, status, or whatever. Just through their very presence and dynamic.

I swear to God this fandom...

#keeping up with the agrestes #Sexism in ml #And it's Fandom #The Cinderella story #Cinderella and Lady Tremaine are NOT an insignificant little trope #It speaks for how misogynistic our society is that while Lady Tremaine is still one of the most iconic villains of all time #She's STILL horrifically underutilized in her potential #Just like Cinderella #The Disney remake is actually the closest version to perfection I've seen yet and THIS one remake I 100% support #It's by far the best one #And holy SHIT that Lady Tremaine was phenomenally utilized #And I'm so MAD that Adrien and Gabriel are such an amazing depiction of this #But Miraculous own girlboss narrative for Marinette actively works AGAINST it #miraculous ladybug #miraculous #adrien agreste #gabriel agreste #ml fandom critical

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

I've seen a few people saying that the people who don't like how Lila is written are just impatient or lack imagination, can we be certain beyond all reasonable doubt that that's not true?

Alright, I'll play devil's advocate for you and show you how, even if we view Lila's writing in the most favorable light possible, it's still perfectly reasonable to have no faith in her as the main villain. In fact, to my line of thinking, it's a little insane to have any faith that she'll be good moving forward. For the sake of your own mental well being, expect her to be terrible otherwise you will likely be terribly disappointed.

The main argument against Lila is that she tells really stupid obvious lies that no one would be fooled by, so how can she possible be seen as a master manipulator by the audience? Well, if we accept that Lila's lies were just exaggerated for the sake of humor the same way that Marinette's crush is played up for humor, then we can hope that that humor will go away and that she'll be played serious now that she's our main antagonist.

This is actually a fair argument. I truly think that this might have been the intent, it just failed to land because the lies are a serious plot point while Marinette's crush antics are not. People wanted Lila outed and every lie was used to hurt Marinette, so the quality of Lila's lies mattered because that's the way that the way that you out a liar. Marinette's crush was never going to be outed by her antics. They were the main way that the writers kept the crush going for five seasons without outing it!

So while you might find the antics just as frustrating as the lies, the expectations built around the antics were met. They never lead to anything. Meanwhile, the expectations built around the lies were never met. Lila was outed by a forced confession, not by her lies even though, when you introduce a liar, audiences will expect the lies to be their undoing. So the lies are bad writing in and of themselves, which is strike one, but we can hope they change so let's move on to strike two: the lie's effect on the cast.

Marinette's antics only made her look bad while Lila's lies made everyone look bad. This is a big, concerning issue since we know that Lila will be a student at Marinette's school again, meaning that it's perfectly reasonable to assume that she'll keep on lying. It's also reasonable to assume that she'll be in every episode.

Even if you take Lila in the kindest light possible and assume that she told decent lies, the writers appear to only know how to write her by dumbing everyone else down and that's concerning. Characters like Max and Alya are supposed to be smart. Max looks into everything and quotes random statistics. Yet he never questioned Lila even though a smart kid like him would be inclined to look into some of the stuff she says just out of pure curiosity and a desire to learn.

We could pretend that Lila told a believable lie about Ladybug like "Ladybug saved me" instead of "Ladybug is my best friend," but even then, Alya learning Marinette's identity still should have been the end of Lila's power over Alya. But the writers didn't know how to handle Alya knowing since Alya would confront Lila, so Alya stayed on team Lila even though it makes no sense and makes her look terrible.

We could pretend that Lila planted better evidence than doilies that Marinette could have taken for free from her parent's shop. That still doesn't excuse Tom and Sabine from immediately believing that their daughter was a thief. They're supposed to be good parents who trust their kid, but the writers don't know how to write that around Lila.

And giving Lila all of that grace makes no sense because it relies on you giving the writers faith that they haven't earned. They had full control over Lila! They knew that she was going to be the next big bad! And yet they wrote her in a way that is totally unbelievable.

Even if Lila's upgrade was decided late in the game, they still could have spent seasons five changing her character to be smarter, but they didn't. Most of the above examples come from season five! It's perfectly reasonable to look at that and say, "I have no faith that you're going to completely reimagine this character into something interesting instead of something frustrating because you have spent five seasons writing her poorly."

And if that's still not enough for you, then here's strike three: The writers have proven time and time again that they cannot write a truly clever character. Lila's most convincing episodes are petty BS that she makes up on the fly. When it comes to complex plots? Lila, Gabriel, and Marinette never come across as particularly impressive.

Others have talked about this, but pretty much every big dramatic plan relies on the writers being able to control the characters' actions. They're not plans that would actually work. Here are just a few examples:

Lila's plan to go to the mansion and get the butterfly only works because the writers know that the butterfly will be unguarded. No reasonable person would assume that would happen because why would it? So why did she go to the mansion? What was her original plan? How does she even know that the butterfly is up for grabs? In a good story, she would have had a plan that lead her to the mansion, but that plan gets scrapped based on what she sees. We don't get that good quality writing because the writers already know that the butterfly will be open season so they never bothered to make Lila's actions logical to any other scenario. They didn't even bother to have her watching the final fight.

Along similar lines, Gabriel only gets all of the miraculouses because Adrien has an evil twin who shows up when the plot demands it. Without Felix, Gabriel would have once again failed and Felix's betrayal makes no sense, especially after his season five characterization. Felix fears his uncle, why offer all of the miraculous AND Adrien's ring? Why not only offer a few? And why is Gabriel able to open the yo-yo and get the miraculouses? The yo-yo opens to a phone, the miraculouses, and a purse. Why would Gabriel be able to control which one it opens to or even open it at all? Especially since access to the miraculouses was implied to be a Guardian power. And why does Felix not immediately betray Gabriel? He's got no reason to stay loyal and he supposedly wants his uncle stopped. Answer: because then the plot would fall apart.

Marinette's plan to hide her identity via the kwamis was asinine and clearly made up last minute by the writers. It would have been very easy to foreshadow this plan by having her hide something in Chat Noir's bell back in season four, but they didn't because the writers didn't actually plan out this plan. There's also the fact that we're apparently supposed to think that the Tom and Sabines is the only bakery in Paris? "Follow the smell of croissants" would not get you to a specific bakery nor would it get you to Marinette's room. It would get you to the bakery. Yet Gabriel goes to the right bakery and to Marinette's room because that's what the writers needed him to do.

I just... how can anyone look at the last five seasons and think, "oh sure, this show can handle having someone who plots and manipulates as the main villain! I'm sure that will lead to lots of satisfying episodes?"

It's not impossible, miracles do happens, but it's the height of arrogance - or perhaps desperation - to act like it's unreasonable to assume that the first five seasons weren't a reasonable representation of the writing quality that we'll be seeing in future seasons. They're not replacing the writing team. What you've seen is most likely also what you'll get. Do you have five bad meals at a restaurant and then say, "It's unreasonable to assume that meal six will be bad, too! Have some faith in the chef."

#ml writing salt #ml writing critical #ml season 5 salt #lila salt #ml fandom critical

[chronicallylatetotheparty]

Repeating this again because some of you don't seem to get it:

Ladybug violated Chat Noir's trust in Ephemeral. She never apologized, never acknowledged it, and certainly never came to the conclusion that it was wrong. Only that it failed.

Yet some of y'all act like Adrien quiting in Kuro Neko was "selfish" because Marinette is going through some shit. As though that excuses her behavior.

It doesn't.

It's not Adrien's job to be Marinette's emotional support pet. And it's definitely not his job to let Marinette treat him the same way Master Fu did.

What Marinette did is called a "red flag". Y'know, that thing that lets you know to get away from this person as fast as possible?

Also: the season five finale happened. Some of you need to get it through your thick skulls that nothing about the finale is justifiable.

#ml fandom salt #ml fandom critical #ml writing critical

[fernsnouveau]

Chat Blanc and Ephemeral do NOT work as proof for why Adrien should never find out about Gabemoth, or why the love square identity reveal shouldn't happen.

They only demonstrate why Gabriel shouldn't find out that Adrien is Chat Noir.

Because he will then be able to plan and play out how to dump the Gabemoth and corpse mom reveal onto unsuspecting Adrien the most manipulative, traumatic way possible, with the explicit purpose and plan to akumatize him. And, at least in Ephemeral (Chat Blanc is unclear), he still needed to actually mind control Adrien too, it seemed like he would have resisted otherwise.

If the narrative allowed Adrien the growth to accept that his father is abusive, and capable of being a supervillain, if Adrien was allowed to have the character development to process this on his own terms, then he could have been the one to figure out Gabemoth's identity. It would have been more meaningful, and done more for his character arc, than anyone else making that discovery. It would have connected an important personal breakthrough (abuse victim starting to become a survivor by comprehending that they were abused) with an important plot breakthrough (ladynoir finding out who their enemy is). It would have meant that Adrien, who's been forcibly reduced towards blank, passive "perfection" and significantly denied agency and the capacity to have a meaningful impact, could contribute something even if he then wouldn't be able to directly fight against his father.

#ml s5 spoilers #ml s5 criticism #ml criticism #ml writing salt #adrien agreste #ml spoilers #ml recreation #ml conformation #ml s5 finale #meta #abuse #character development #abuse apologism #ml fandom critical #critical of the portion of the fandom who are regurgigating abuse apologism and victim grooming rhetoric #to justify the writing decisions of s5 #please understand that you are validating real-life abusers and enforcing the grooming of real-life victims by doing this. #adrien #garbage moth #gabriel agreste's a+ parenting #gabemoth reveal #should have been something Adrien was able to process on his own terms #it was crucial to him having a satisfying abuse survivor arc #which... the showrunners have now made clear they didn't think Adrien OR irl abuse victims deserved.

[infinitysgrace]

some of y'all have been fucking poisoned by the "the book was better" branch of movie criticism and never grew out of that shit, and it really shows

#ml fandom critical #infinite rants

[ck2k18]

It's really crazy how some of y'all real comfortable putting Alya and Nino in the black best friend trope/role but still wanna whitewash them in your art and fics.

#ml fandom salt #ml fandom critical #alya cesaire #nino lahiffe #ml #miraculous ladybug

[ilikekidsshows]

Okay, I'm done. I'm gonna fucking say it. This is my take that's hot enough to scorch the earth.

Marinette is not a 14-year-old girl

"Marinette" is a fictional character, therefore she is a construct made by a group of grownass adults, who should fucking know better. When Marinette does such an abhorrent thing that it has people renoucing her writing while the writers make excuses for her, that's not Marinette "making a mistake", that's the writers resolving the plot the way they intended to.

The writers literally think she's in the right to lie to Adrien. They've said so, the fucking show bible says Adrien will never learn the truth so Marinette will keep lying to him. Do you honestly think the writers would actually make their protagonist that much a parallel to her boyfriend's abusive father on purpose? They literally had no idea what they were doing when they wrote the finale with Marinette gaslighting her abuse victim boyfriend about his father's abuse. We're meant to only see Marinette protecting poor, fragile Adrien from things that would hurt him, even though that is how Gabriel saw his actions as well.

As far as the writers are concerned, Marinette has to make those decisions for Adrien, because she knows best. Because she's the protagonist. She's literally the center of the fictional universe of Miraculous, and, as of the retooling in season 4, the show is being written accordingly. Marinette only makes mistakes when she doesn't know something, meaning the mistake wasn't really her fault even when she feels guilty. She's never allowed to be morally wrong about anything, because the writers have changed the way this show works. It's Protagonist Centered Morality all the way down, now, the protagonist is literally just a mouthpiece for how the writers think things should work, and that is that Adrien's trauma isn't allowed to inconvenience Marinette in the slightest.

The people defending this writing choice are even worse, though. They actively voice the general idea that abuse victims shouldn't let their trauma ever inconvenience anyone, or they don't deserve relationships, if they're not outright denying a person's right to be traumatized at all. "Adrien isn't emotionally stable enough to know the truth," they say with complete sincerity, not realizing how ableist they sound. "Adrien should forgive Marinette for acting like his abusive father because Marinette had good intentions," they claim every time they try to justify Marinette's behavior, valuing the mistreating party's feelings over those of the party that is being mistreated. And let us not forget that even Marinette's good intentions just mimic Adrien's abuser.

Like, I know it's because these fans care more about Marinette as a character than they do about Adrien. They're both fictional constructs and not real people, so people will side with their favorite. But, once again, the people justifying the bullshit this show does with Adrien sound so much like abuse apologists that we really have to start calling things by their actual names.

#ml fandom critical

[red-balloon12]

“Some people need to accept that Chloe is going to be an irredeemable monster in all universes.”

Do people who have this mindset not realize that is the LITERAL problem we’ve been pointing out for a month now and that this mindset is worrisome??

Not only does Chloe being evil in EVERY universe including the backwards universe offset and unbalance the rules of alternate universes in general but it furthers people’s theory that Astruc has this never ending grudge on Chloe or has this uncanny problem of presenting her in a remotely positive light (which is weird because he wasn’t afraid to make Gabriel a downright hero-)

And it ALSO furthers the sentiment that the same guy who baseball-ed his own son into the Eiffel Tower without mercy is the SAME person the writers are saying is more sympathetic and able of heroics then a gODDAMN 14 YEAR OLD-

The fact there aren’t more people at least questioning this bothers me to no end.

#ml fandom salt #ml fandom critical #ml writing salt #chloe deserves better #I beg of you guys to read between the lines and see the absolute bs indications the special brought us

[mangasstuffcomics]

So cyrus the great is officially the worst lila is a minor and leave Marinette alone how could stay that about 14 year old girl you disgust me

The worst miraculous youtuber to ever exist and his fans are idiots

And his videos are bad please just stop watching miraculous I don't want to see his videos on season 5

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous s5 #miraculous season 5 #marinette dupain cheng #ml youtube salt #cryus the great salt #ml fandom salt #ml fandom critical #lila rossi #Marinette sugar #anti marinette salt

[eddo-tensei]

Honestly, it's pretty sad that many fans are willing to ignore how much of a disservice episodes like Derision do to most if not all the characters in the show just because it happens to validate their salt against like a couple of them. In fact, much of the posts I've seen in the #ml fandom salt tag are just people getting mad at fans of Chloe for criticizing this episode while claiming that said fans are "defending" Chloe's bullying of Marinette.

Ah yes, being upset at an episode's portrayal of a character totally means that you're defending all of the actions of said character in the episode and beyond. It totally has nothing to do with how everything else is written and how other characters (INCLUDING Marinette) were butchered in the process, you FUCKING MORONS.

In all seriousness, though, I honestly think anyone who unironically says that Chloe is innocent and was "right" to bully Marinette are just as braindead as the people who claim that Marinette could do no wrong. Just want to point that out before someone tries to claim otherwise. I am begging you people. Stop defending bad writing just because you feel "vindicated" for it. You're going to regret it later.

#miraculous ladybug #miraculous #mlb #mlb spoilers #ml s5 spoilers #ml season 5 spoilers #ml writers salt #ml salt #ml spoliers #ml derision #ml derision spoilers #ml fandom salt #ml fandom critical

[wilygryphon]

Some ML fans are hoping that Season 6 will make everything from the season 5 finale clearer, that the finale is supposed to set up the next season. Respectfully, I disagree. Setting up the next season should be a secondary purpose of the finale. The primary purpose should be resolving at least some of the previously-built-up plotlines. Especially when the finale is supposed to resolve a multi-season arc, particularly in defeating the overarching villain and dealing with all of the plot points that were directly tied to them, particularly when one of the main protagonists (the villain's son) is left out of the whole thing and never told the truth about both his father (who he's finally started to stand against) and the villain he's been fighting for five seasons. Doing a poor job of wrapping up those plot points should not mean that the next season is left to deal with what should have already been tidied up. Sequel baiting should not override finishing the story that was already being told. There is a reason why Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice and The Amazing Spider-Man 2 were criticized for putting too much focus on setting up sequels.

Compare this season finale to Kingdom Hearts III, another "end of an era" installment and the resolution to the Xehanort Saga. That game put a lot of focus on setting up the next saga, but it never forgot what its purpose was. Everyone who was lost and left to a bad fate in previous installments was rescued and made whole. Each villain was given a proper sendoff, even the ones who we would expect to see again. Everyone got to face their particular nemeses again and in some cases vanquish them personally. (Roxas, Axel and Xion fought Xemnas and made peace with Saïx; Aqua and Ventus faced Terranort and Vanitas again, and Terra reclaimed his body and eliminated that incarnation of Xehanort for good; Riku AND Riku Replica overcame the physical manifestation of their dark past selves and mistakes; Sora and Riku (as well as Mickey) defeated Ansem and Xemnas once and for all, and they also defeated Young Xehanort even though the earliest version of the villain was unconcerned; and Sora, Donald and Goofy fought and defeated Master Xehanort. Re:Mind even gave Kairi the chance to fight by Sora's side and defeat another incarnation/Replica of Xehanort.) Now let's talk about the final battle. Sora, Donald and Goofy, with all of their friends helping keep Kingdom Hearts stable, fought and defeated Master Xehanort. Despite being barely able to stand, Xehanort did not want to give up, before Sora and the heart ghost of Master Eraqus convinced him to let go. What did Xehanort do then? He entrusted the light to Sora and gave him the χ-blade, then faded away to enter the afterlife with his old friend. Then Sora fixed everything, and went off to recover Kairi while sacrificing himself.

Would you look at that? Kingdom Hearts III resolved all of its major plot points while still setting up future conflicts. No one kept secrets from their friends, everyone had their moments of catharsis, the villain was not vindicated even if the game turned around to try to make his goals sympathetic at the last minute, and the heroes. Actually. Won.

Oh, and while there are still mysteries and things left to interpretation, the game still made a point to clarify what was going on in front of us.

A later episode in a season can make earlier episodes make sense, but it shouldn't be left to the next season to explain things that the season finale refuses to resolve. If the next season is necessary to make this season good, this season was not and never will be good.

#ml rant #ml recreation #ml season finale #kingdom hearts #kingdom hearts iii #there are a lot of works that one could compare to this show and have them rank higher than this #ml writing salt #ml writing critical #ml fandom critical

[miraculouslbcnreactions]

Why the "True Selves" Theory is Insulting

Image for a second that you have a friend who's a bit of a ditz. She's also fun, creative, and sweet. You enjoy being around her, but you've never seen her as more than a friend. Then, one day, a fire breaks out at an event that you and your friend are attending. Your lives are suddenly in mortal peril and the same goes for everyone around you because you can't find the exit. You think that you're going to die.

Then, suddenly, your friend transforms. Not in a magical way, it's just a personality shift, but it might as well be magical because it's like nothing you've ever seen! The ditziness is gone, replaced by laser focus and a take-charge attitude that has everyone following your friend without question. When all is said and done, everyone lives because of you friend. As it turns out, her tendency to get easily distracted means that she's a fantastic in-the-moment problem solver.

Going through that completely changes how you see this girl. You no longer just like her, no, you're now deeply in love with her. You tell a mutual friend about this and they laugh at you, then say, "Don't be silly, that wasn't really her! Her true self isn't that brave girl who saved your life! That was special circumstances that don't count. All that counts is the way she acts when there isn't a crisis going on. It doesn't matter that you've always liked her and enjoyed her company, if you didn't fall in love with based solely on her ditzy self, then you don't really love her."

Most people would call this mutual friend insane because of course going through crazy experiences changes the way we view people! Imagine if you had an allergic reaction and your significant other's reaction was to panic and run away, leaving you to die. You only live because you manage to grab your phone and call '911.' That would understandably lead many people to reassess if this is the person they want to spend their life with just like the opposite experience might make you see a person as a good life partner.

Marinette is Ladybug. She gets full credit for everything she's done in the suit and it's perfectly fine for Adrien to become attracted to her after he sees her in action. It doesn't mean that he only values her Ladybug side. He quite clearly cares for Marinette, he just hasn't seen her in the right light for him to fall in love. (And, if we're being frank, Marinette acts like Ladybug all the time when he's not around or when he is around, but a crisis is going on. She's really not that different from her alter ego.)

Along similar lines, Marinette isn't wrong for being drawn to Adrien's sweeter side more than his over-the-top jokey side. There's a reason why Glaciator ended with her blushing. Compare the end of Glaciator to the end of Origins and, yeah, same energy because - in that moment - Chat Noir was letting his Adrien side out by being more sincere and vulnerable, which are the things that Marinette values most in a romance and the things that he rarely shows while in the mask. It doesn't mean that she hates his jokey side, it's just not going to win her heart when Adrien's right there being sweet and sincere while Chat Noir hides his feelings behind a smile and a laugh.

In fact, it's pretty insulting to Adrien to say that someone shouldn't be attracted to his more vulnerable side. That his sincerity is worth less than his jokes. Almost as insulting as telling Marinette that her Ladybug side doesn't count and she should get no credit for being brave as that's not really her. Loving her only counts if a person falls in love while she's behaving in her most over-the-top, cringe, embarrassing way.

I don't know about you, but I would never want someone to hold me to that standard nor would I hold my significant other to that standard! It's perfectly normal to have things that you don't love about your significant other. In fact, I'd argue that part of the magic of a real, lasting romance is having someone who loves you even though you're not perfect. If you are looking for a partner who never annoys you or does something wrong, then you will never find happiness because that person does not exist.

Now that I've said all of that, I want to add that I do think that marichat, "love both sides" stories can be cute. It's just not One True Path to Real Love. It's totally fine if the square starts dating based on the things that they find attractive about each other and then just continue to be in love as they learn about the other side. If anything, that's normal. Learning about a person is what dating is all about! A good relationship is no different than a good friendship, you just get some bonus perks if you're into that kind of thing.

I'll also note that I'm not criticizing stories where Marinette feels like she's the "real" version and Ladybug is the fake because that's a really understandable thing to be nervous about. Tikki saying that shit? Hard no. Terrible mentoring.

#ml fandom critical #ml fandom salt #adrien deserves better #marinette deserves better #Any time this comes up in a fanfic I cringe a little so I needed to rant a bit after I saw it again #No I will not tell you the fic #I'm only making this post because the issue is so common that I can talk about it without feeling like I'm calling someone out #This is a discussion of a widespread issue not one person's flawed POV